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135 injured, 1,723 arrests as new ‘yellow vest’ protests hit Paris

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Some 89,000 police were being mobilized nationwide, with a dozen armored vehicles deployed in Paris for the first time in decades. (AP)
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Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said he expected “only a few thousand people” to descend on Paris after the 8,000 protesters counted last weekend, “but among them are ultraviolent individuals.” (AP)
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The protesters began blocking roads, fuel depots and shopping centers around France on November 17 over soaring petrol prices that have hit people in the provinces who get around by car. (AP)
Updated 09 December 2018
AFP
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135 injured, 1,723 arrests as new ‘yellow vest’ protests hit Paris

  • Clad in their luminous road safety jackets, dozens of demonstrators gathered at dawn on the Champs-Elysees
  • Some 8,000 police were deployed, carrying out checks on people arriving at train stations and at protest hotspots
Updated 09 December 2018
AFP

PARIS: A total of 1,723 people were arrested across France during the latest round of "yellow vest" protests, in which demonstrators clashed with riot police, the interior ministry said Sunday.
Of these, 1,220 were ordered held in custody, it said. Some 136,000 people took part Saturday's protests, around the same number as on December 1.

France’s Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said Saturday evening that the “yellow vest” demonstrations are now under control, and that a high level of police presence will continue on Sunday if necessary. 

Earlier on Saturday, police fired tear gas and arrested hundreds of people in Paris as the French capital went on lockdown for the latest “yellow vest” protests against President Emmanuel Macron.
Shouts of “Macron, resign” mingled with the tear gas near the famous Champs-Elysees avenue, the scene last Saturday of the worst rioting in Paris for decades.
A forklift truck driver who gave his name as Denis said he was planning, like others, to march on Macron’s presidential palace in anger against a leader who they say only looks out for the rich.
“I’m here for my son,” said the 30-year-old, who had traveled down to Paris from the Normandy port of Caen.
“I can’t let him live in a country where the poor are exploited.”
The protests began on November 17 with road blockades against rising fuel prices but have since ballooned into a mass movement against Macron’s policies and top-down style of governing.

Coordinated “yellow vest” protests were taking place across the country on Saturday, including on numerous motorways, causing havoc on the national road network.
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said 481 people had been detained in Paris as police carried out checks on people arriving at train stations and at protest hotspots such as the Champs-Elysees and Bastille monument.
Among them were dozens arrested for carrying masks, hammers, slingshots and rocks that could be used to attack police.

Shops, museums, the Eiffel Tower and many metro stations were closed, while top-flight football matches and concerts have been canceled.
Last weekend’s violence, which saw some 200 cars torched and the Arc de Triomphe vandalized, shook France and plunged Macron’s government into its deepest crisis so far.
“These past three weeks have produced a monster that its creators no longer control,” Interior Minister Castaner said on Friday, vowing “zero tolerance” toward those aiming to wreak further destruction.
Philippe on Friday evening met a delegation of self-described “moderate” yellow vests who urged people not to join the protests.
A spokesman from the movement, Christophe Chalencon, said Philippe had “listened to us and promised to take our demands to the president.”
“Now we await Mr.Macron. I hope he will speak to the people of France as a father, with love and respect and that he will take strong decisions,” he said.
Philippe said some 89,000 police were being mobilized for protests nationwide, including 8,000 police in Paris, where a dozen armored vehicles were being deployed for the first time in decades.

Shops around the Champs-Elysees boarded up their windows and emptied them of merchandise on Friday, while the Louvre, Musee d’Orsay and other museums were shut.
Department stores were also closed due to the risk of looting on what would normally be a busy shopping weekend in the run-up to Christmas.
Foreign governments are watching developments closely in one of the world’s most visited cities.
The US embassy issued a warning to Americans in Paris to “keep a low profile and avoid crowds,” while Belgium, Portugal and the Czech Republic advised citizens to postpone any planned visits.


In a warning of impending violence, an MP for Macron’s party, Benoit Potterie, received a bullet in the post on Friday with the words: “Next time it will be between your eyes.”
Macron this week gave in to some of the protesters’ demands for measures to help the poor and struggling middle classes, including scrapping a planned increase in fuel taxes and freezing electricity and gas prices in 2019.
But the “yellow vests,” some of whom who have become increasingly radicalized, are holding out for more.
Protests at dozens of schools over university reforms, and a call by farmers for demonstrations next week, have added to a sense of general revolt.
The hard-line CGT union, hoping to capitalize on the movement, has called for rail and metro strikes next Friday to demand immediate wage and pension increases.
Macron’s decision early in his presidency to slash taxes on France’s wealthiest is particularly unpopular with the protesters.
Arguing that such a move was necessary in order to boost investment and create jobs, the former investment banker has so far ruled out re-imposing the “fortune tax.”
But the policy, along with hikes on pensioners’ taxes, cuts in housing allowances and a string of comments deemed insensitive to ordinary workers, has led critics to label him a “president of the rich.”
Macron had previously vowed to stay the course in his bid to shake up the French economy and not be swayed by mass protests that have forced previous presidents to back down.
The climbdown on higher fuel taxes — which were intended to help France transition to a greener economy — marked a major departure for the centrist president.

 

Topics: Paris France yellow vest

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World copper rush promises new riches for Zambia

Updated 3 sec ago
AFP
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World copper rush promises new riches for Zambia

Updated 3 sec ago
AFP

CAPE TOWN: Five years after becoming Africa’s first Covid-era debt defaulter, Zambia is seeing a dramatic turnaround in fortunes as major powers vie for access to its vast reserves of copper.
Surging demand from the artificial intelligence, green energy and defense sectors has exponentially boosted demand for the workhorse metal that underpins power grids, data centers and electric vehicles.
The scramble for copper exposes geopolitical rivalries as industrial heavyweights — including China, the United States, Canada, Europe, India and Gulf states — compete to secure supplies.
“We have the investors back,” President Hakainde Hichilema told delegates at the African Mining Indaba conference on Monday, saying that more than $12 billion had flowed into the sector since 2022.
The politically stable country is Africa’s second-largest copper producer, after the conflict-ridden Democratic Republic of Congo, and the world’s eighth, according to the US Geological Survey.
The metal, needed for solar panels and wind turbines, generates about 15 percent of Zambia’s GDP and more than 70 percent of export earnings.
Output rose eight percent last year to more than 890,000 metric tons and the government aims to triple production within a decade.
Mining is driving growth that is forecast by the International Monetary Fund to reach 5.2 percent in 2025 and 5.8 percent this year, which places Zambia among the continent’s faster-growing economies.
“The seeds are sprouting and the harvest is coming,” Hichilema said, touting a planned nationwide geological survey to map untapped deposits.
But the rapid expansion of the heavily polluting industry has also led to warnings about risks to local communities and concerns of “pit-to-port” extraction, in which raw copper is shipped directly abroad with little domestic refining.

’Dramatic new chapter’

“We need to be aware of the potential for history to repeat itself,” said Daniel Litvin, founder of the Resource Resolutions group that promotes sustainable development, referring to the colonial-era scramble for Africa’s resources.
There is a risk that elites will be enriched at the expense of the broader population, while “narratives of partnership” offered by major powers can mask underlying self-interest, he said.
Chinese firms have long dominated the sector in Zambia and control major stakes in key mines and smelters, cementing Beijing’s early-mover advantage.
Another major player is Canada’s First Quantum Minerals, Zambia’s largest corporate taxpayer.
Investors from India and the Gulf are expanding their footprint, and the United States is returning to the market after largely pulling out decades ago.
Washington, which has been stockpiling copper, this month launched a $12 billion “Project Vault” public-private initiative to secure critical minerals, part of an effort to reduce reliance on China.
In September, the US Trade and Development Agency announced a $1.4 million grant to a Metalex Commodities subsidiary, Metalex Africa, to expand operations in Zambia.
“We are at the beginning of what is going to unfold to be a dramatic new chapter in the way that the free world sources and trades in critical minerals,” US energy secretary adviser Mike Kopp said at Mining Indaba.
Sweeping US tariffs introduced last year helped send copper prices soaring to record highs, as companies rushed to buy both semi-finished and refined stocks.

Cost of rush

“The risk is that this great power competition becomes a race to secure supply on terms that serve markets and not the people in producer countries,” said Deprose Muchena, a program director at the Open Society Foundation.
Despite its mineral wealth, more than 70 percent of Zambia’s 21 million people live in poverty, according to the World Bank.
“The world is waking up to Zambia’s copper. But Zambia has been living with copper and its consequences for a century,” Muchena told AFP.
Environmental damage caused by mining has long plagued Zambia’s copper belt.
In February 2025, a burst tailings dam at a Chinese-owned mine near Kitwe, about 285 kilometers (180 miles) north of Lusaka, spilled millions of liters of acidic waste.
Toxins entered a tributary feeding the Kafue, Zambia’s longest river and a major source of drinking water. Zambian farmers have filed an $80 billion lawsuit.
“Whether this boom is different depends on whether governance, rights, and community agency are at the center, not just supply chain security,” Muchena said.

Topics: Zambia copper

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